Recipes and food-related ramblings from Spain, Scotland and anywhere in between.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Swiss chard and potato omelette (tortilla de patatas con acelgas)

I'm a bit of a food purist, and tend to cook things from scratch. Once you've acquired a certain level of experience, this isn't as difficult or time-consuming as it sounds, but it still takes a lot more time than opening a tin. (Although I do plenty of that too.) One way I cut down on the work is to make generous quantities and to make good use of any leftovers.

I looked in the fridge this lunchtime and realised that both me and Gemma had been on an egg-buying binge, so I beat some up with the leftovers from my Swiss chard and potato curry to create this. A classic Spanish omelette just has egg, potato and onion, but variants with spinach or courgette are quite common, so this seemed like a logical thing to do.

Finely chop the onion and fry it gently, adding the garlic when it is nearly done.

Stand the Swiss chard and potato curry in a colander over a bowl to remove any liquid, then transfer to a chopping board and roughly chop the potato pieces.

Put the chopped curry and the onion into a mixing bowl. Beat the eggs, add them to the bowl and mix well.

Heat a little oil in a medium-sized non-stick frying pan, then pour the mixture into it.

Cook over a low heat until the bottom of the omelette is cooked and the whole thing is beginning to set.

Flip the omelette over into another non-stick frying pan in which you have already heated a little oil. (Or use one of the other methods described in my earlier post on this subject.)

Once the omelette has cooked underneath, transfer to a plate and serve. (The omelette should still be moist, even a little runny in the middle. The Swiss chard helps here, as it retains more moisture than potato alone.)

Veggie heavenI hope I've now made it up to all my veggie friends for the rude comments over the past few months! I can't promise that the comments will stop, but I will try to leaven them with plenty of meat-free recipes.